Xtera Communications Inc., a provider of optical networking systems, and LIME, the Caribbean arm of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), have completed the installation of the Caribbean East West Cable network.
The 1,700-km, multimillion-dollar submarine cable connects Jamaica, the British Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic with a high-bandwidth transmission system. The undersea cable will enable LIME to meet the rising demand for high-speed bandwidth from consumers and business customers in the 14 Caribbean islands where the company currently operates. It will also facilitate the roll out of a slate of new fixed broadband and mobile data services that LIME is developing for customers requiring high-quality capacity support.
LIME entrusted Xtera with the planning, design, engineering, installation, and commissioning and project management of this submarine cable project. The network employs Xtera's NXT submarine line terminal equipment and associated management equipment to provide 120 Gb/s across the system and the ability to be upgraded to transport 720 Gb/s using the supplied technology, with even higher values possible with future technology.
Xtera's NXT is a high performance submarine line terminal supporting new deployments and providing significant capacity upgrades for existing systems. It can transport a variety of traffic types, such as Gigabit Ethernet and SONET/SDH at different line rates -- in this case some 2.5G interfaces were supplied to handle existing traffic. The NXT also extends the life of the initial investment as it can provide high capacity with a relatively narrow bandwidth cable, a key requirement given LIME's imaginative re-use of existing cable.